Evening concerts

On 10-11 March, Distractfold Ensemble curate Cut & Splice, a two-day festival of sound art and experimental music. Distractfold have long been champions of programming acoustic works alongside electronic pieces, and this festival sees them expand their singular vision to encompass installations and sound art as well.

The festival stretches from the theatrics of Steven Kazuo Takasugi’s hyperactive The man who couldn’t stop laughing and the balletic tension of Sivan Cohen-Elias’ Hack, to the jitterbug dance of the speaker cone as it pulses out spatial explorations by Lee Fraser, Helena Gough or Ana Dall’Ara-Majek. From the sound art installations of Adam Basanta and Lee Patterson to the roaming, participatory sound walks of Christina Kubisch. From the bass clarinet and string trio of Fabrice Fitch’s Agricola IXe to the repurposed objects of Hanna Hartman’s specially commisioned new work Dust Devil. From the purely acoustic sounds of Murat Çolak’s A song sung together to the electronics of Elsa Justel’s GWERZ and Denis Smalley’s Empty Vessels, via those strange intermediaries: pieces by Mauricio Pauly, Sam Salem, Sabrina Schroeder and Katherine Young that mix electronic and acoustic and where, in a tumble of wires, sliders and black boxes, it becomes impossible to tell where synapses end and circuit board begins… – David Pocknee